"Choices"

by The Rev. William G. Lamont, Pastor

"Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word.'"  Luke 1:37

The porch light is on and the Christmas decorations have all been strung. Supper is warming in the oven, and the table is set, awaiting the assembly of the family. The hands on the clock move slowly past the appointed hour.  Your ear is tuned to every car that drives past the house. Finally a car comes along that does not pass by but pulls in the drive and stops. A car door slams and the front door opens and the empty house is filled with suitcases, bags,  and the cacophony of greeting people…laughter, hugs, and lively chatter.  Your family has arrived home for the holidays…Advent preparation gives way to Christmas joy.

Christmas is inextricably tied to family. Why is that? Perhaps it is because Christmas from the very beginning has had its roots in the family. Christ was born into a family, a fairly ordinary family says Luke, and Christmas has never really strayed far from those roots. It’s still about family. Oh, Christmas is also office parties and Holly Dazzle and the Macy’s parade, but the true celebration surrounds family. The joy of Christmas and the joy of being together as a family to celebrate Christmas are truly inseparable. It’s all the same joy.

The unique contribution of Luke’s gospel is to highlight the importance of choice for that first family. Christ’s birth was no accident…it wasn’t a matter of fate that Jesus was born into a Judean family. No, his birth was a matter of choice. God chose Mary to be the mother of the Christ-child, “Greetings favored one! The Lord is with you.”  And more than that, Mary chose God, by accepting the prophecy, welcoming it, nurturing it, “Let it be to me according to your Word.” So Christmas—Christ’s birth—was a result of God choosing Mary, and Mary choosing God.
      
Now, we all know that the choices we make in life can be very significant.  (Perhaps not all of them…whether you chose to have a Grande Starbucks coffee or a Venti cappuccino likely doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things, but other choices can have a significant impact upon our lives.)   Twenty-five years ago Sue and I decided we were going to have children and that has proven to be fairly significant decision. Some of our friends at the time decided not to have children. We had a name for those kinds of people—we called them DINKS…“Double Income, No Kids.” I remember one of them saying: “the world is already overpopulated and we don’t want to contribute to the problem.” Well, that’s not how we viewed the issue of children at all, so we decided differently. And in no time at all, along came David! Suddenly the two of us were three and we were a family.

Family life suited us just fine. Life was good…for about 2 1/2 years, and then we began to think it would be good for David to have a little brother or sister. He wasn’t asking for one, which made us all the more convinced it would be good for him. Besides, we both came from larger families and it just seemed natural. So the decision was made to have another child. We figured it would be easy…just a matter of time before Beth would come along…but that was not the case. A year passed and there was no sign of her at all. Finally we made an appointment to see a fertility specialist—must be a problem. We’ve the decision—why isn’t anything happening?

The specialist said that she would order some tests to see whether there was a problem, but in her experience it was often just the anxiety of the couple that was the stumbling block. There is a difference between wanting something and willing it. You can want to be pregnant but you can’t will it. Her advice to us was simply to relax, go on with life and see if pregnancy didn’t occur. Well, she was right…we went on with life trying not to be so anxious about it, and it wasn’t too many months later that Beth was on her way into our lives!  

The choices we make in life can be quite significant…life-changing. The choice to have children has taken our lives in a completely different direction. We are in a different place than we would have been had we decided to be DINKS for the rest of our lives. So different, in fact, that it’s difficult to even imagine what life would be like without them. Our choices can be that significant. 

And it’s interesting that “choice” is such a prevalent theme in so many of the Christmas movies we watch this time of year. Classic Christmas movies like, “A Christmas Carol” and “It’s a Wonderful Life”, both emphasize the importance of the choices people make. Ten years ago a new Christmas movie entitled, “The Family Man,” came out featuring Nicholas Cage. It’s the story of a guy who had the opportunity to either go to England and start a posh new job or stay home and marry the love of his life. He chose England.  He became a very rich and successful businessman—fancy car, lush condo,  women falling all over him, but he was completely and utterly lonely. One Christmas he gets the opportunity to see what life would have been like if he had chosen door number two…if he had picked marriage instead of the job in London. In fact, he gets to live that new life for awhile and at first he can’t stand it! Over time, however, he begins to fall in love with his new life and realizes it was the better choice for him…that he would have been a better person had he married the love of his life and had a family. After he comes to that realization he wakes up to discover the whole things was a dream…he’s back in his old life again—miserable. He goes on a desperate search for his old girlfriend and finds her catching a plane to France. Over the heads of people in a crowded airport he confesses, “I know we could both go on with our lives and we'd both be fine, but I've seen what we could be like together. And I choose us.”   

Choice…it’s a powerful thing. The choices you make can change your life significantly. But as significant as that may be, it’s not the message of Luke’s gospel in today’s passage. He’s saying more than “make good choices in life”. Luke’s message is this: “if you really want to make a difference in the world, if you really want to make a difference in other people’s lives, then align the choices you make with the will of God for your life.” Real change is more than making good choices, real change is making God’s choices. And we do that by opening our ears to the call of God and being willing to follow where God leads. That’s what Mary did—when the angel Gabriel came to her with the announcement of Christ’s birth and that God had found favor with Mary to bear this child, her response was, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your will.” She chose to be the one who would bear the son of the Most High…and that change has been transformative, not only for Mary, but for the world.

Ann Weems touches on this truth in a poem she writes entitled, “Mary, Nazareth Girl”, in her book, “Kneeling in Bethlehem”. The last few lines suggest that this young, inexperienced girl must have been chosen by God for good reason:

 “Could it be that you had been ready, waiting, listening for the footsteps of an angel?”

“Could it be there are messages for us if we have the faith to listen?”

That’s the posture we need to have as God’s faithful…leaning forward, straining to hear God. Open to being led by God. For whenever we align our choices with God’s will—there is huge potential for change. We can make a huge difference not only in our own lives, but in other people’s lives too.   There’s a new movie in the theatres this Christmas called, “The Blind Side”.   It’s the true story of a black teenager named Michael Oher who grew up in a poor family of 13 children in the north part of Memphis, Tennessee. He grew up pretty much on his own—his mother was a drug addict and his father disappeared soon after he was born. He wasn’t a bad kid but he was pretty much a loner—no real friends in his life…nobody really to look out for him or care for him.

One cold night Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy were driving along through town when they saw Michael out with just shorts and a t-shirt on. Leigh Anne insisted her husband turn the car around and go back to the boy. He was cold, depressed and really had nowhere to go…The Tuohys took him home to their place. In their own words: Michael was there, he had a need," Leigh Anne said. "We had the ability to fill it. We all fell madly in love with him, probably within 48 hours. He was an instant part of this family."  Michael became part of their family and they eventually adopted him and he proved to be a wonderful addition to their family. Overcoming great odds in school,  Michael was eventually picked up on a football scholarship to the  University of Mississippi and was a first-round draft choice for the Baltimore Ravens. Michael’s story has become the subject of a book and a new movie featuring Sandra Bullock. The Tuohys receive mail from all over the world from people touched by this story and what they did for Michael. They were interviewed on “Good Morning America” this past week, and they said: "We absolutely know that the good Lord put Michael in our lives for a reason…so it doesn't surprise us that positive things are coming out of the movie and the book and the whole story.”

The choice was not only good for Michael, it’s been good for all of them, too. Leigh Anne said, “none of us can remember life before Michael.  He’s become such a wonderful addition to our family.”

When we are open to the Spirit’s guidance and willing to make choices that God would have us make, we can really have a transformative effect on the world. Ask the Tuohy family…they transformed an individual and in doing so transformed themselves. The problem with most of us is we go through life with our heads down. We don’t see the hand of God at work in our lives,  we don’t hear the voice of God vying for our attention, calling us in certain directions. And when you miss God you miss the blessing God has for you in life. Your life is dry and bland and as forgettable as a saltine cracker. It’s when we open ourselves up to the possibility of God in our lives, like Mary did to the angel Gabriel, like Leigh Anne Tuohy and family did to Michael Oher, that we begin to truly live and that we begin to truly make a difference in this world. 

Where is God breaking into your life right now? Where is God niggling away at your soul, working on you to consider some new possibility, some new direction in life? The other day someone said to me, “One of the good things that has come out of this recession is that people have begun to re-evaluate what is important in life and they are beginning to see the importance of community again.” It’s true isn’t it? Prosperity pushes us to be independent and self-serving but a recession reminds us that there is something more important than money…our biggest resource is one another.  We need each other. Well, the church has been preaching that forever…the community of faith is a force to be reckoned with. And we need to build that community—help one another, pray for one another, reach out in the name of Christ to others in need. God’s presence is alive when God’s people make choices that are aligned with the will of God. That’s how Christ was born that first Christmas, and that’s how Christ is born into our world still today. 

Amen.